Science's Dead, Jim
We betray science by turning it into a religion — and the rise of AI will make matters worse.
Those of you who did not recognize the Star Trek reference, raise your hands.
Shame on you.
Here is perhaps the biggest contradiction in today’s world: just as we look to science to provide ever greater contributions to our lives, we embrace attitudes that betray the key principles of science.
This might feel like a forgivable sin in these days when we renew the excitement for Santa Claus…but it has major negative consequences. Science is dead, and we are paying the price.
The scientific method requires (i) the systematic careful collection of data, (ii) the formulation, testing and refinement of hypotheses, and (iii) an open debate. But over the last several years we have moved in exactly the opposite direction: dissenting opinions have been systematically censored and demonized; hypotheses have been elevated to the status of unquestionable truths; and data collection itself has been corrupted by the desire to support predetermined conclusions.
This unscientific, anti-scientific attitude carries a high cost.
A recent spike in children’s hospitalizations for respiratory illness in China has reawakened fears of a new pandemic, which for now luckily appear to have abated. It also highlights one of the most egregious examples of betrayal of science: the management of the Covid-19 pandemic.
A pandemic of unreasonableness
Three years ago, public health authorities dismissed out of hand the possibility that the virus might have escaped from China’s Wuhan laboratory, even though seeing the first outbreak right outside of a lab conducting gain of function research on exactly the same pathogens seemed like quite a coincidence. The lab origin of Covid now looks increasingly likely, also because no evidence of another, zoonotic transmission has ever been identified.
Data collection on Covid-19 was polluted from the very beginning, with hospitals instructed to classify as “due to Covid” any death “with Covid.” This was not a new problem — the famous physician and author Hans Rosling had highlighted it while helping fight Ebola in Liberia. Rosling said, in his book Factfulness,
“Data was absolutely key. And because it will be key in the future too, when there is another outbreak somewhere, it is crucial to protect its credibility and the credibility of those who produce it. Data must be used to tell the truth, not to call to action, no matter how noble the intentions.”
Public health authorities ignored him, deciding to inflate Covid fatality numbers to maximize the fear factor and bolster support for dramatic and ill-conceived containment measures.
The hypotheses that mask mandates and lockdowns would contain the spread and reduce overall fatalities were presented as unquestionable truths (even though such measures had been deliberately excluded in most countries’ existing pandemic preparedness plans). The fact that some US states, like Florida, and some countries like Sweden followed different strategies provided an opportunity to test these hypotheses. Instead, the media rushed to condemn the Swedish government and Florida’s governor as mass murderers. Three years later, the data confirm what the early evidence had already suggested: mask mandates and lockdowns made no difference. The chart below plots CDC data on excess deaths associated with Covid in California and Florida. California consistently mandated the most draconian restrictions; in Florida life went back to normal after a two-week lockdown.
Source: CDC
Some prominent expert voices advocated a targeted strategy that would protect the most vulnerable, that is the elderly and the immunocompromised, as detailed for example in the Great Barrington Declaration. Rather than welcoming an open debate, public heath authorities and media denounced these experts as dangerous heretics. Many of them were silenced and ostracized in their own universities (Stanford’s treatment of Jay Bhattacharya and John Ioannidis was especially outrageous.)
In a similar way, public health authorities proved remarkably reluctant to admit that Covid vaccines did not prevent infection or contagion and could in some cases have dangerous adverse side effects; instead they supported vaccine mandates that put young people unnecessarily at risk and led to workers being unfairly fired from their jobs.
So there you have it. Throughout the pandemic we have seen a stubborn reluctance to undertake double blind randomized controlled trials (science’s gold standard); and even now there is no honest debate on the many mistakes made in fighting the pandemic — including the misguided and catastrophic school closures. By the way, school closures and lockdowns might help explain the surge in children’s respiratory illnesses in China, as kids missed the opportunity to naturally strengthen their immune systems.
The end result? Many countries are suffering a prolonged spike in excess deaths of working-age people from cardiovascular disease, diabetes, liver problems and drug abuse, most likely because the lockdowns delayed check-ups and treatments, disrupted healthy lifestyles (even running on a deserted beach was forbidden…) and boosted drug use (see here and here). And now even most of the elderly and vulnerable refuse to take the vaccine again — science betrayed our trust, and now we don’t trust science.
2 + 2 = ?
Climate change is another important area where the debate has turned dogmatic, and any voice that dares depart from the established narrative gets tarred and feathered in no time. I’ve discussed this extensively in a previous blog, so let me leave it at that.
The anti-scientific attitude has spread far beyond these important issues. We’ve heard charges that math is racist, and proposals to modify school curricula accordingly. We have also seen a trend to emphasize the value of Indigenous, or Traditional knowledge (see for example the White House Initiative, and similar steps in Australia.) Here we need to be careful. There is no doubt that “traditional” knowledge often contains valuable insights — Ayurvedic medicine is an example — that we should explore, test and leverage. But this would be best done within the scientific method that has served us well, and not attributing special importance to certain knowledge merely because of its origin. (Though I do have a fascination for alchemy…) And while prejudiced behavior might well plague human interaction in scientific environments — mathematicians are humans too— arguing that math itself is racist is a dangerously misguided misconception.
The less scientific our attitude becomes, the more we expect from science.
I believe!
Yet we grow increasingly excited at the prospect that science will deliver unimagined improvements to our lives. With AI experts assuring us that large language models have opened the door to Artificial General Intelligence, we expect that AGI will soon deliver new clean forms of energy, miracle cures for diseases, and an effortless rise in prosperity. The less scientific our attitude becomes, the more we expect from science.
And yet when you look closer there is no contradiction. We now look at science with something approaching religious faith. During the Covid pandemic we started talking about “The Science” as the source of unshakable and unquestionable truths, even when the mandates of The Science seemed to change overnight in arbitrary and capricious ways — in fact some of the restrictions imposed in the name of science seemed to make as little sense as archaic religious prescriptions. With Artificial Intelligence this faith-based approach becomes even more extreme: AI is after all a black box, which delivers its truths through inscrutable algorithmic processes. This becomes the perfect excuse for us to not even try to understand how the answers are arrived at — after all, even the scientists developing AI models are telling us that we cannot understand how the AI does what it does. It is strikingly close to the faith we have traditionally been asked to put in our gods.
This, it seems to me, is unlikely to end well.
But in the coming days, let’s suspend disbelief and enjoy the wonders of the season.
Happy Holidays!
Very true. Especially the line about science slowly becoming a religion. Have faith or else! Regardless of proof.